Terry Murphy (Teesside University)

Senior Lecturer Social Work, Teesside University

Election address

I am standing as an experienced activist and officer for over three decades .I am a long-standing branch chair and have previously served on NEC and as Regional Chair. Whist taking part in every industrial action since the union was founded, I'm standing to argue that a sole focus on strike action is in danger of making us as a union a one string banjo. I believe we need to significantly increase the attention paid to overwork and unpaid overtime and to provide better assistance to branches in helping members identify overwork and non-contractual overtime earlier and challenge effectively and swiftly. In my own branch we have succeeded in helping members achieve very substantial unpaid overtime payments of up to 50k and a year's sabbatical from teaching due to excess hours and this depends on developing a clear and above all empirical workload model and swift action on overwork. I regularly run local workshops on assertive work loading and understanding your academic contract. A member who is helped to methodically record unpaid overtime at weekends and evenings and challenge excess hours early is a member in a stronger relationship with the employer and sets an example. colleagues can follow. A member who can see in concrete terms how many lost weekends and evenings unpaid overtime has cost them is a member who can be helped to take action for themselves and their loved ones . 

I'm arguing therefore that our sophisticated strategies for industrial action need matching not replacing with working to contract development which doesn't wait to be utilised in a particular industrial action but is integrated into membership from day one. We need to work with members pre and post 92 to help the recording and utilisation of accurate workload times be a norm from day one and link this to an assertive, formal approach to make management acknowledge overwork in a much more speedy, granular and accurate model which directly presses for recompense in immediate payment or workload relief.  As a concrete example a staff member marking say 100 scripts now receives 50 extra workload hours  for this task that didn't exist before.   

Finally, I'm a strong believer in supporting the UCU equalities agenda and negotiated a 0.4 seconded post solely for union equalities work funded by the employer. Working in Africa and Central ASIA and Ukraine on behalf of UNICEF and others as well as working during the troubles I believe support for all academic staff and students from anywhere in the world experiencing violence must be a core part of the unions work and that we should reject the attempts by any government anywhere to pressure staff or students or intimidate on our campuses.